My first injection

Second day of the new sem and we second year students are already bombarded with lots of stuff. The best yet was today’s clinic. The dreadful LA injections. I was the first ‘dentist’, nyek nyek nyek. And Jovina’s my patient. Now I realise, Jovina, I gave my first time to you d leh!!! Though you also gave me your first time la. It was exciting. But my patient was very nervous. I’m all gloved up, waiting for the numbing cream to work and waiting for the tutor to come and guide me. Then I have nothing to do but look at Jovina’s mouth and I notice something. Her lower jaw is shaking. Trembling. And her whole body is kind of shivering. Wahlao, make me also nervous d. Lol. The tutor was guiding Yinan through hers, so I hopped over and look. And I saw something. Yinan’s hand is shaking. Trembling as she injects it in. Wahlao again, makes me even MORE nervous.

Then my turn came. And I showed the tutor where I was going to position it, held the lips away firmly, and there goes the jab. It was such a slow process because we’re doing infiltration and so I have to hold the needle at a steady depth. It’s not meant to be very far in – only 2 to 3 mm. With my hand trembling, it was indeed a super hard job to keep the needle stable in place. Then I injected the LA solution, and my tutor kept asking me to slow down and the pace is just killing me softly. So slowwww la, but if I go any faster, it will prolly hurt. So for Jovina’s sake, I tried to be as slow and consistent as I can. My hand was shaking and as my attempt to control it failed, I ended up giggling a bit, moving the needle, making it harder to stabilise my hand. Then I actually have to control myself, telling myself to breathe in when really, I should be guiding the patient.

It’s really quite exciting! We get to do two injections, and both are painless, which is the best thing. Apparently next week’s one is gonna be a bitch. Even the DA said, just wait till you do the ‘block’, which involves thicker longer needles and larger dose of LA. I can just sincerely hope we students won’t be cursing each other by end of the next session!

p/s Before we inject on real people, we did get to practise – once on an orange. We were all giving each other fake smiles in the beginning when the tutor said it was easy. Turns out it was indeed not as hard as I thought it’ll be. And I was so tempted to take pictures of the process, but I don’t think it will be allowed… Plus it may provoke some very ‘boh song’ memory in some of you, so I better spare you guys from holding on tightly to the edge of your seats.

pp/s My exam results were fine, much better than I expected! Only one more to be revealed, but it’s the subject that really, no one worries about, so yeah, I’m cleared for sem 1!